How’s the Almaden real estate market? We’ll have a look at the absorption rates among houses and condos to start.

One disclaimer - for the month of February, there were NO closed condo or townhouse sales, so the months of inventory is not really answerable unless we wanted to put “infinite” (which doesn’t chart well). There were ten active listings at the time. So I entered 14 to rank it with the worst of the months this year.

So what do these numbers mean? They are a way of seeing how long it would take for the current inventory to sell off if no new homes came onto the market and properties continued selling and closing at the current rate. Under 6 months is considered a sellers market by the National Association of Realtors, and more than 6 is considered a buyers market.

As you can see, the absorption rate, or months of inventory, among single family homes has stayed fairly low most of this year, whereas the condo market has had a few more challenging months, but recently is improving.

Next let’s have a look at the Almaden Valley real estate statistics, data and trends, first among houses:

Prices have slipped from last year but the median price is identical to last month, interestingly. The number of sales is way down from last month, when Almaden Valley and many other parts of Silicon Valley experiences a bit of a surge in sales. Inventory is not much different from last month and up a bit from a year ago. Perhaps most notable is the ratio between list price and sales price. Days are market are very similar to last month and to last year. As in other parts of San Jose and Santa Clara County, it’s inching downward.

And next, let’s view the condo and townhome market data, stats and trends in Almaden:

The condo and townhouse market in Almaden Valley has been more erratic than the single family home market. There are not a lot of condominiums in Almaden, so the numbers are too easy to skew. Despite these challenges, we can see that prices are slipping, inventory is up, list price to sales price is slipping, days on the market area up. But the good news is that the number of sales is rising, and if this becomes a consistent trend, we’ll know that we are at or near “the bottom of the market”.

If you would like information on buying or selling a home in Almaden Valley, or anywhere in Silicon Valley, please call or email me. I’m happy to offer you a free, no-obligation initial consulatation.

Mary Pope-Handy, Realtor, CRS, ABR, e-PRO, SRES, ASP, RECS, CNHS, ACRE
Helping Nice Folks to Buy & Sell Homes Since 1993
Co-Author: “Get The Best Deal When Selling Your Home In Silicon Valley”
Keller Williams, Cupertino, CA (Silicon Valley)
877 397-5391 (Direct/Toll-Free/Fax); 408 204-7673 (Cell)
www.PopeHandy.com & www.ValleyOfHeartsDelight.com
emailto: Mary@PopeHandy.com

“How long will it take to sell my home?” This is a perenial question among home sellers in Silicon Valley. Real estate professionals can look at the statistics and, when experienced and active in your local market, tell you what they believe will happen based on the absorption rate and days on market numbers.

We know that the national average is that for approximately every ten showings, a home should get an offer. It may or may not be an offer that results in a sale. Today’s market in the San Jose area is more sluggish than usual, but homes are still selling in many areas within a month if all is right when it’s offered for sale. One thing is for certain, though, and that’s that sellers have to see offers to be able to sell a home, and there are no offers if there’s no qualified traffic.

What kind of traffic is good enough? Three showings a week is decent after the initial flurry of a new listing. There will be more visitors to your property in the first week or two, both in regular showings and in open house visitors who are serious about buying. If you are not getting three showings a week (and it’s not a major holiday, a heat wave, or something along those lines), you have a problem. There are three most likely culprits to the problem: price, conditon, and marketing.

The feedback from showings and open house visitors is of key importance and will help you and your agent to understand the public’s reaction to your price and condition. Agents can ask (without being pushy) questions about how the buyers think or feel about the home. Or ask their agents. (I use a system called HomeFeedback.com that requests feedback by email with a very short 5 question survey. Normally I get about a 65% response rate from agents.) When most of the consumers or agents tell us “the home is dated” or “it needs too much work”, we know it’s an issue. Or perhaps the home is turnkey, but is priced 10% too high. Sometimes the condition issue is fixable but sometimes the only way to address it is in lower, more attractive pricing (when huge renovations appear to be necessary or there’s a time or money issue for the seller).

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